“There's a valuation premium in the private markets. I don't know where Anthropic's going to go public, but it's clear to me they could have raised capital in the private markets at north of $2 trillion if they wanted to. I'm not convinced the public market's going to give them that same valuation. Same with OpenAI.”
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch · Startups & Venture · November 2026
Context
Stebbings asked whether Wilson worries that private pricing has detached from fundamentals. Wilson says private valuations exceed what public investors will pay, which speaks directly to doubts about the Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs.
Transcript
We've definitely learned some hard lessons. I think maybe the biggest takeaway is like, you know, we've done much better on this like offensive strategy than defensive strategy. So we do way fewer of co-investment opportunities than we do outbound. That's probably the biggest takeaway.
…realist investor that to me really likes fundamentals. Today, a lot is detached from fundamentals, it would seem, especially from the privates world, where you've got incredible exuberant pricing, real frothiness, juxtaposed by this very real public markets reality. How do you think about that?
I mean, I think like the markets have short memories. You know, if you look at the lessons from the original tech bubble in the 2000s and the GFC in 2021, like from the crypto bubble, like, you know, we're seeing the same kind of stupidity that we saw in all those other cycles. And it's like every five years, particularly in private markets, you know, where I think the investors tend to be just less sophisticated. But it's clear to me that like there's a valuation premium in the private markets. You know, I don't know where Anthropic's going to go public, but it's clear to me they could have raised capital in the private markets if they stayed in the private markets at north of 2 trillion if they wanted to. I'm not convinced that the public market's going to give them that same valuation, maybe. Same with OpenAI. Aura tried to go out. Cerebrus tried to go or has traded really poorly since the IPO. SpaceX is basically back to really close to its IPO price. There's just too much capital chasing these kind of late-stage champions in the private markets. And the valuations are, I think that's why…
Why would you go public? Is this a permanent transition in the financing landscape? Where to your point there, you could raise and stay private. The Collisons have proven that staying private and having a great business is very beneficial. You're still able to do amazing tender offers for your…
There's a lot of rationale to stay private. I think ultimately, like the public markets are obviously much deeper capital markets. I think, you know, when SpaceX Made 85 billion or whatever in the IPO, that's pretty tough to do. You know, the sovereign wealth funds and the big pension funds and…
Do you think we're seeing a massive sell-off now to make capacity for Anthropic?
More from The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
